


The Absence of Heat

by orphan_account



Category: Brave (2012), Frozen (2013), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Bromance, Comedy, Crossover, Disney, Drama, Dreamworks, Elsanna - Freeform, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Jackunzel - Freeform, POV First Person, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3702691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twins, Elsa and Jack, were born with extraordinary powers. Elsa struggles to cope with them, seeing as they turned their little sister into an amputee, while Jack uses them, with every opportunity, to his advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Incident

Darkness. What does that word even mean? When it comes down to it, it's really just an idea. Darkness isn't anything you can hold or feel or even see. It's the absence of light. It is nothing without its opposite. It's only the word for when its other half isn't there. And that's who I am, if I had to put it into words. A boy of nothing. Nothingness. Born without, not even my other half, but without all of it. It's like my mother laid an egg, but instead of it hatching, the shell sprouted legs, and she settled for that. It seems unfair, whiny, even, to insist that I'm missing a part of me, considering I was born with another little egg holding my hand the way through. Still, though, two spare tires don't make a working car. Our story is an unorganized, unsure, unneeded one, like ourselves. Jack and Elsa: The Incomplete Series. We came into this world on the winter solstice, and, honestly, our parents should have thrown us on the streets right then. They may not have seen it for the blinking neon sign sent straight from hell that it was, but our parents were stupid. Because no later than the first night home, it started snowing in our nursery. Because when we started walking, little patches of frost appeared all over the hardwood floors. Because with every temper tantrum came a hail storm that forced mom and dad to arm themselves with umbrellas. Because they couldn't keep a regular babysitter for more tHan a week without her getting literal hypothermia. Elsa and I had both been born blonde, but I went grey by age twelve. We went to all sorts of doctors, but they all have the same resounding "Beats me." They all assumed I had some sort of birth defect, and waved it off. My parents thought that maybe it could be something along the lines of theirsonhavingmagicalicepowers or whatever, but they weren't doctors, so they thought they'd best not say anything. I wondered if stress had something to do with it, but I'm sure if that'd been the case, I would've just gotten ulcers or something. Besides, Elsa was the one hating herself over all of this. Elsa would give anything to get rid of her powers. She doesn't care if they make her special, she doesn't care how she could use them to her advantage, and she sure as hell doesn't care that they're a part of what makes her who she is. She doesn't give a shit about the hundreds of reasons why our powers are amazing; all she can see are the billions of reasons they suck ass.

  
_"I can't eat hot pockets."_  
_"I always break the TV remote."_  
_"I break my ribs whenever I try to go on a slip n' slide."_

A bunch of stupid shit.

  
And then...  
_"I could hurt someone again."_

The reason she locks herself in her room every year on her birthday, the reason she refuses to get close to anyone, and this is the reason she won't go anywhere near our little sister Anna anymore.

Because Elsa made our kid sister a cripple.

When we were little, the three of us got caught up in a freak accident, and Elsa, being the self-hating person she is, insisted the whole thing was her fault. 

It was only like 90% her fault. 

On the Christmas Eve, Elsa and I had just turned eight. All three of us were outside, having a field day in the foot-high snow, while our parents were watching TV inside. Elsa was getting pretty flustered, trying with all her might to form icicles on the edge of the roof, but the best she could manage were spewed clusters of hail and snow. I'd already learned to do it ages ago, which she knew, but she and her pride refused to let me help her. So I sat there under a big oak tree, watching her fail over and over again. 

"Elsa, you look like a retard," I blurted from behind her, mindlessly scooping snow into a plastic blue bucket.

"Wha—," she turned around, clearly startled, stumbling a little. "Don't say that...especially in front of Anna," she gritted, mumbling the last part in an effort to hide it from Anna, who was lying on the ground right next to her, making a snow angel. She had been in the same place for five minutes, reaching as far as she could, in an attempt to make the wings larger and larger.

"It's just a word."

"Being grounded is just a temporary removal of privledges," she snapped. She was trying to sound smart, but she was making herself sound even more retarded.

"Will you just let me help you?"

Though still annoyed with me, she gave in, silently nodding.

"Icicles are just frozen water, dripping off. It freezes into the shape of the water. You can't freeze something that's not there."

She paused for a moment, tucking in her lips, before asking a favor that she would regret the rest of her life.

"Can I use your bucket?"

I sighed, trying to sound as bothered as possible. I didn't really care about the bucket, though. She was just being annoying.

"Yeah. Fine, I guess." I emptied out the container, noting that it was big enough for Anna to sit in, and handed it to my sister, as she carried it to the over to the water-hose. She twisted the hose out from the faucet, and placed the bucket underneath it, twisted the knob, and waited for it the fill to the brim. She carried it back to her spot near Anna, waddling in her layers, as water swayed out every few seconds.

I could have told her to use a smaller bucket. 

"Get the ladder," she bossed.

"UGhhh." I complied and headed to the back yard. It wasn't like I had anything better to do.

I came back with a wooden fold-out ladder, as I dragged it across the snow, leaving parallel lines in the otherwise untouched silk. I folded it out right in front of the roof, next to Elsa, as Anna watched obliviously, without sitting up from her spot.

I could have told Anna to move.

Having an idea of what Elsa had planned, I climbed half way up the 6-step ladder, as she strove to lift up the massive container. She handed it to me, my arms quivering as I grasped the handles and proceeded two more steps up. I glanced through the window below me. Mom and dad were glued to the TV.

"Ready?" she asked me, sighing in anticipation.

_No. This is a fucking stupid idea._

"Yeah. I think so."

My arms trembled again. I lifted the water over my head, wincing as my legs nearly slipped, and Elsa placed herself into a stance.

I dumped the water onto the edge of the roof, relieved as I felt all that weight being lifted from me. In just a few seconds, the mass of liquid poured out.

And Elsa actually did it. The water froze in it's place...for two seconds. She had failed to wait until the water reached the roof. Instead, she shot quickly, causing the water to freeze mid-air, into a large mass of ice.

I could have jumped in front of Anna.

The creation tumbled onto, then off, the roof, a bit of it breaking off on impact. As it flew towards the ground, it landed precisely... **on Anna's left arm.**

The giant shard punctured her skin, causing a noise akin to someone quickly cutting into Thanksgiving turkey. 

The noise that followed, though, was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever had to hear.

Anna's scream, broken every so often by a straight sob. 

Elsa burst into tears, kneeling towards her little sister, hopeless and panicked. I was, for lack of a better word, frozen. The door flew open, like an attempt by the universe to pull me back into reality. It failed, though, and I stood there, still, as Elsa cried over the red stain in the snow, so hard that she was barely breathing anymore. My parents seemed to be following in my lead for a moment, saying nothing, doing nothing, before my mother took in a large breath and screamed at my father to call an ambulance, to "please, dear god, call an ambulance."

It wasn't until Anna stopped making noise that I started crying with Elsa. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JESUS, the wordiness in this story. I'm currently revising this, and the first chapter is more or less done. I've just got to fix the formatting.


	2. Golden Linings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup & Rapunzel are introduced.

After the infamous “eternal minute” passed, my whole world shifted from a seemingly neverending dragging on of time, to a bleary fog of colors and screams. In a moment, everything was in vivid, slow-motion, as every gritty detail, sight, smell, and the feeling of goosebumps on my skin, (not from the cold, but from the view of little Anna in utter hysteria, as the snowy surface of the earth was stained with rosy fluid,) anchored into me.  
  
My father, not wanting to expose Elsa’s abilities, as if they didn’t have enough to explain, told the doctors an icicle fell onto Anna’s arm, from the roof...all on its own. There were no icicles on our roof that fateful morning. Not a single one. It wasn’t cold enough. We all knew the truth. Two stupid kids, one slightly less stupid, made a stupid mistake that ended in calamity.  
  
  
  
The doctors couldn’t save our sister’s arm, as the shard of ice had cut through the near entirety of her upper arm, severing her brachialis. They had no choice but to amputate it.  
  
  
  
As tragic and mentally scarring as the whole event was, I’d be lying if I were to say that nothing good came out of this crazy mishap, and Anna made sure to always point this out.  
  
  
  
“Hey, at least it wasn’t my right arm, huh?” was the first thing she said when she woke up in the hospital, noticing Elsa’s reddened face, drenched in tears. She also still reminds us how lucky she was for her to have been so young, as she would have her entire life to get used to the idea of having only one arm. She also assured us that this break in the clouds lead to her remembering less and less as she grew older. Unfortunately, every little, tiny second of that day was deeply carved into the minds of Elsa and I. The images cut through our skulls like the frozen water cut through our poor sister. I’m just relieved that she lived to tell her story. There is...one more miracle that came out of this. Hiccup Haddock...the third, and Rapunzel Zonenschein.  
  
  
  
A few years ago, in midsummer, when Anna was eleven, a sarcastic little shit and a ray of sunshine were brought into our lives by means of a support group that she found online, for kids, teens, and young adults with disabilities. Now, Anna, having pretty much completely gotten over her lack of a left arm, didn’t really need a support group, per say, but she was ecstatic at her discovery and begged mom and dad to take her. When she came back from her first meeting, she was dying to tell Elsa about it and ran upstairs to her room, but she was preoccupied with “protecting” everyone, sulking in her room, listening to classical music, and dwelling in self-pity, so she came to me instead, right next door. She excitedly fiddled with her strawberry-blonde pigtails, whilst I listened to her run her mouth about her experience.  
  
  
  
“There weren’t that many people there, but that’s what made it feel so nice and cozy. The only adult there was this man named James; he lost his hand ‘cos of a crocodile, and there was this little red head boy named Nemo, who’s missing part of his arm, like me!...Only it’s his right arm, and he was born that way. And then, there’s this girl named Gabriella; she can’t talk, but she’s really pretty. Um...OH! Hiccup! There was this guy named Hiccup, who lost his left leg in a fire, and when we were introducing ourselves, he said he was 14, like you!”  
  
  
  
“...His name is Hiccup?” I responded, previously not giving a much of a damn about whatever she was saying until she sparked my curiosity.  
  
  
  
“Mhm,” she nodded merrily, her hand moved from her hair to being folded with her prosthetic one, behind her back.  
  
I paused for a moment before responding:  
  
“‘The hell kinda name is that?” I inquired, soon feeling great remorse for doing so. Anna proceeded to kick me, physically scolding me for my language, causing me to cringe in pain.  
  
“Hey,” I said, gritting my teeth, “ just because you have a disability, doesn’t mean you have to give me one.”  
  
Anna half-smiled  
  
I know it sounds like a dick move, but this was normal for us. Anna didn’t mind, so we found our own way of bringing light to the situation. Though Anna didn't care, Elsa did. I was careful not to make these kinds of jokes in front of her, but occasionally, it slipped my mind. This was one of those times. The walls in our house were ridiculously thin. (No watching R-rated movies on Netflix or jacking off to porn in the middle of the day, when everyone is awake. Just kidding...that’s what headphones are for.) We simultaneously groaned as we heard a door slam open, then shut, and heard the rattling of my own, as Elsa stood, cross, in the doorway.  
  
She silently walked across the room, with a grim look glued to her face, and proceeded to kick me...in a region I’d prefer not to impart, but I’m sure one could gather.  
  
Elsa walked right back out the door, leaving me in a ball on the floor, crouched over in pain.  
  
Such abusive sisters...  
  
As she closed the door to her own room, Anna patted me on the head, kneeled down to my level, and mumbled.  
  
“Now you’re disabled from having children. Ouch.”  
  
I briefly laughed before returning to grumbling in agony.  
  
“Okay, I guess I’ll leave you alone now-Wait. I forgot!”  
  
“Hm?” I replied, momentarily lifting up my head.  
  
“I was talking to that guy, Hiccup, after the meeting, and it turns out, he lives down the street from us. He also has a cousin who’s staying with him while her parents are in Germany. Ra...punzel? I think…Anyway, I really think we should go over there sometime if mom and dad are okay with it.”  
  
The sharp pain was slowly fading, as I sat back up on my bed.  
  
“I can tell they’re related. I bet their parents took a bag of Scrabble tiles, poured all them all out, and just picked whatever jumble of letters sounded best.” Anna rolled her eyes at me and put her hand on her hip.  
  
“Well, I think Rapunzel is a beautiful name.”  
  
I thought so too, but I didn’t care for admitting it, in the interest of my joke.  
  
  
  
  Anna asked our parents the very next morning. They agreed, but only on the condition that they could talk to an adult, and that I would keep an eye on Anna at all times. I didn’t really want to go, but I did; I knew how massively excited she was for this. When we arrived, Hiccup’s parents opened the dark, mossy green door and welcomed us with thick Scottish accents, introducing themselves as “Valka” and “Stoick”. His mom was thin and tall, with long brunette hair, and a slender face. His father was a large, muscular man with a large red beard, tied in various knots at the bottom, lined with the occasional grey strand, (Ha, join the club...it sucks.) whom I swear was roughly the size of a bear. Speaking of graying, I love the reactions I get from my hair. Most of it consists of raised eyebrows and assumptions that I’d dyed it. After running through a list of parental cliches, such as: “Make yourself at home”, “It’s so nice to meet you”, and, of course, “HICCUP! WUT DID AYE SAY TO YE ‘BOUT NOT FINISHIN’ YER HAGGIS?”  
  
Typical parents.  
  
Hiccup and Rapunzel were in the living room, they informed us, so we headed that way. Entering through the gaping arch in the plastered wall, to the right of the hall in which we had entered, we discovered two kids, one of which looked ever so slightly older than the other. The elder one was male, the younger, female. The duo sat criss-cross on the floor, N64 controllers in hand. Both of them were barefoot. The boy had unkempt, shaggy, chocolate brown hair and was wearing a Fall Out Boy t-shirt and basketball shorts. (I went ahead and constructed an educated guess that this must be Hiccup.) he wore a robotic-like prosthetic, with no artificial skin mimicking a human foot, like the ones I had seen on the internet, just a simple, metal, hook-shaped contraption to put his weight on. Rapunzel had unfathomably long golden locks, falling freely onto the strangely patterned carpet, that would reach all the way down to her knees if she were to stand up. The blonde was wearing a black pullover, on which the facial features of a cat were imprinted, and denim capris. I could tell they were playing Mario Kart 64 from the easily recognizable tune, vibrating from the television speakers. Before I could accumulate any other details of their respective appearances, Hiccup paused the game, looking away from the small screen. I readied myself for what I knew very well would happen. When he caught his first glimpse of me, he snickered obnoxiously, but, in his defense, cupped his hand tightly around the bottom of his pale, prepubescent face, in a desperate attempt to stop himself. Rapunzel, on the contrary, merely gazed at me in intrigue. The brunette, proceeding to provide a line of dialog, thoroughly caught me off guard, as I expected a Scottish accent. Nevertheless, out of his pale, thin lips came an American, slightly nasally, accent.  
  
“Wow, I knew Anna was bringing someone, but I didn’t expect it to be her dad.”  
  
Anna blatantly bent over in laughter, and in no time, she was gasping for breath.  
  
“Ha, yeah, that’s...really funny,” I retorted, more-than-slightly unamused. Anna (who was still recovering from her outburst) and I sat down by the pair, as we watched them competitively grip their controllers.  
  
“Ya know,” said the blonde, who possessed a voice that rang in my ears like a sweet melody, “you guys could play if you want” We took up the offer and joined in, playing for each of the four cups, as we learned more about one another. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (I still poke fun at his name to this day, and he’s even joked about legally changing it.) was fourteen at the time, just as Anna had informed me. His parents grew up in a small, unmapped town on the edge of Scotland, called Berk. Hiccup had been there a few times but grew up in the states, which explained his accent. He lost his foot when his old house set on fire before Rapunzel was living with him. Luckily, everyone survived, even his cat, toothless, who lost half of his tail in the incident. Toothless, a solid black cat, with big green eyes, the same color as both Hiccup and Rapunzel's, looked up from his spot on the couch at that point in the story, pounced down onto the floor, and found his way onto Hiccup’s lap. Rapunzel Corona Zonenschein was also fourteen, in the same grade as Hiccup and I, though her birthday hadn't arrived until early May. Her father, Thomas, was Valka’s brother. He met Rapunzel’s mom, Primrose, when he was studying abroad in Germany. As Rapunzel told the love story of her parents, she seemingly became lost in the tale, her large, wondrous eyes drifting off into space. She explained how her father fell not only in love with her mother, but with her name. He loved it so much, as a matter of fact, he suggested the idea of passing it down to their future children, instead of his own title, Haddock. They were married 3 years later and gave birth to a healthy baby girl, passing down Primroses’s enchantingly beautiful last name to her, just as they had planned. I asked her why she was talking about her parents, and not at all about herself. She tried to explain that she wasn't nearly quite as extraordinary as Hiccup, but I very willingly guaranteed her that she was wrong.  
  
“You have to be joking. Have you seen you?”  
  
She tilted her head, confused.  
  
“What, you mean the hair? Lots of people ha-”  
  
“No, I mean...you’re kind of gorgeous, if you haven't noticed.”  
  
Those words went a hell of a lot smoother in my head.  
  
“Oh...,” she turned scarlet, and Anna looked like she was on the verge of barfing. Hiccup then proceeded to destroy the raw awkwardness.  
  
“Watch out, Punz. I think he might be a pedophile.”  
  
Everyone burst out in laughter, even I, being the butt of the joke.  
  
They encouraged me to tell my story, and I eventually gave in to their pleading. They were obviously most curious about my hair. I left out the gory details of Anna’s arm, and instead described to them that I had a twin, and my hair had turned fully silver two years ago, but started going grey at 9, which was, as my parents believed, the result of "too much pressure". As great as my desire to pour my heart out to the two of them was, I withheld all information of my powers, as I had been instructed to since I was small.  
  
The rest of the three hours we spent there were filled with elderly humor, snacking on junk food, and countless multiplayer games. From that point on, the three of us became best friends. I really owe Anna for that day, as she persistently brings to my attention. I tell her every time that guys with one leg and girls with 4-foot long hair don’t just grow on trees, and that I’d have to wait for something really special to come along to fairly repay her. If only I could get Elsa to talk to her, to tell her that she didn’t hate her, and she was avoiding her for her own safety...that she missed her...so, so very much. I know, with every ounce of me, all of these things to be true. There isn't a doubt in my mind that even one of them is not. Alas, that would be practically impossible. I’ll find another way to pay her back...eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There aren't many handicapped/disabled animated characters, but I did my best. The characters I included were: James B. Hook, from Peter Pan, Nemo, from Finding Nemo, Gabriella, from The Little Mermaid TV show, and Hiccup, from How to Train your Dragon.


	3. Flashbacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A huge bulk of exposition, and stories taking place in the past, before the "real" story starts.

Soon after Hiccup and I were introduced, he fell unconditionally head over heel for a girl he met at a medieval convention that summer, Astrid Hofferson, a tall, slender, ever-so-slightly masculine female, with a level of sass the rivaled my own.

 

_"Hey Jack, what time is it?"_

_"_ _Time for you to buy a watch."_

  _"Oh, I actually have one. I left it at home, but according to yours, it's time for you to stop acting like a little bitch."_

 

Thanks to her, I never used that primary school line again. How dare she. Astrid was a fairly attractive girl, whom had medium blonde hair, less "shimmery gold" than that of Rapunzel's, but more so than Elsa's. She was fairly in shape, running every morning and afternoon, totaling to a sum of about eight miles per day. This "habit" of hers had a huge impact on Hiccup. A couple weeks after they started officially dating, she implored that he join her one morning. As anyone could have predicted, he loathed it. Not only did he have a deep, fiery despisement for that daily two-hour morning wake-up call that, by the end of it, made him feel like someone had robbed him of oxygen, and before promptly stabbing him in the throat, (at least...that's how he described it) but he also sucked at it. In spite of all that, Hiccup continued partaking in this routine torture, eventually transforming him from a scrawny twig...to a slightly less pathetic noodle. I don't know how the hell he could run every day and still be the size of a grasshopper. Still, she loved him to death, and he would give anything for her. I don't doubt that Hiccup would even hesitate for a moment to butcher me if I were to insult her.

 

The following winter, Elsa and I turned 15. Instead of inviting friends over, we spent the whole day participating in an “exclusive” celebration, surrounded by various relatives, infants and elders alike. This was the last time Elsa celebrated her birthday since the incident, and she was absolutely, without a doubt, miserable. Our mother essentially forced her into a shapeless yellow dress, curling her hair, and topping it off with a golden hairbow, completely humiliating the poor girl, continually calling her “my little ray of sunshine” out of pretty much nowhere. She’d never been a woman who favored nicknames, and has never behaved in such a way since. On top of that, she couldn’t have picked a less suitable title for her eldest daughter. Elsa was falling apart, and all of us could see it distinctly. No amount of nicknames and hairbows would restore any sort of stability that she may have held. That day, I swore to Elsa that I would’ve put on a dress too, just to make the whole experience even a little less mortifying.

 

A few months later, I was introduced to Rapunzel’s new college dropout boyfriend, Eugene Fitzherbert, or “Flynn”, as everyone called him, at his request. He was a whopping eight years older than her, being fourteen at the time. She was absolutely enthralled by him, much to the dismay of her parents, whom she kept their relationship a secret from, after they forbade her from seeing him. I don’t really think the age difference was the source of the problem. Had she been older when she met him, and further along in her journey of maturing, they probably would’ve been cool with it. Despite all the complications of their relationship, they were determined to stick together, and ended up benefiting one another in the process. Eugene was beyond inspired by her ambition, and, within months of meeting her, enrolled in classes to continue his education, after four years of living with the absence of school. As for Rapunzel, she did the first rebellious thing in her life. Even I learned something out of their motivating story...to shut up about how breathtakingly stunning Rapunzel was, with her thin, rosy lips that would curve to produce the most contagious smile know to man, her green eyes, never ceasing to see a glimmer of hope in even the darkest moments, and the hint of of a light patch of freckles that sprinkled over her nose. I’d just have to get the fuck over all of that...

 

My best friends were falling in love all around me, but I didn’t mind much, as I was falling in love with horror movies and ice cream that didn’t have to melt if I didn’t allow it to. As happy as I was being alone, Astrid just wasn't having it. She insisted on setting me up with her friend, Merida, who she met at a Scottish heritage festival that she dragged Hiccup to. I had nothing better to do, so I agreed to meet the girl. Astrid invited her to a small party she defiantly planned while her parents were out of the state for a couple days.

 

As it turned out, Merida was exceedingly opposed to the idea of being set up. However, when she was talking to her mom about the situation, dealing out her share of daily complaints, she was advised to go, as the experience might be good practice for building up her social skills. Merida had moved to the US a year ago, and had an accent a few levels thicker than those of Hiccup’s parents. She had fiery red hair made of wild curls that ventured every which way, a somewhat weak chin, and rounded cyan eyes. Much to Astrid’s disappointment, we did not end up swooning over one another. I was too busy failing miserably at forgetting about a certain pair of emerald eyes, as Astrid had made the mistake of inviting Rapunzel. Merida, ironically, couldn’t take her eyes off my sister, who valiantly decided to venture outside her room on that particular day, mostly because Anna was having a sleepover, and she didn’t care for the idea of listening to four screaming girls all night. Her plan was to hide out here for a few hours, and hope that the girls would fall asleep before she returned. Though Mer and I didn’t exactly hit it off in a romantic sense, she became one of my best friends that night.

 

“Hey, listen. It would be really great if you could stop staring at my sister.”

 

“Huh? Wh-Oh...I didn’t know that sh-Are you sure you two are related?” Merida stuttered, still choppily glancing over at Elsa, then back to me.

 

“Uh...yeah, listen. My sister isn’t really-”

 

“Woah, slow down. I’m not trying anything…So, she’s straight. Doesn’t really matter, anyway,” she sighed, leaning up against the fold out table, pushing a strand of flames behind her ear, “She’s not my type.”

 

I took a moment to process how a girl whom she had been staring at for nearly an hour, and hadn’t even talked to, at that, could be classified as “not her type”, but I settled for not questioning the ways of a lunatic.

 

“Wha-No, no. It’s not that. It’s not about if she likes boys or girls. Actually, I don’t know shit about her preferences. She doesn’t like people. Period.”

 

“So, you’re saying I have a chance?”

 

“No.”

 

“But you just-”

 

“That is not at all what I said.”

 

“She could be a hardcore lesbian, Jack.”

 

“Please shut up.”

 

“I’m gonna talk to her.”

 

“Now, hold on a second. Did you not just say-fuck it...”

 

She blocked me out wholly, and headed straight for Elsa, fiddling with her braid, looking longingly at the clock. I have no idea what went on that night, but I definitely underestimated that little fierce madwoman. Within just a few seconds, Elsa was smiling, actually, genuinely, uncontrollably grinning. Plastered across her face was a bright, authentic smile.

 

When was the last time I saw Elsa smile, the last time she wasn’t forcing one?

 

As thrilled as I was for her, in that moment, I realized what a poor excuse for a brother I was. We hadn’t talked in two weeks, and we lived together. There was definitely something undeniably wrong about this situation.

 

 

The assertive Scott strolled back a few minutes later, with a napkin in her hand, and a smirk sweeping from one freckled cheek to the other.

 

 

 

“Well…would you look at that? I got her number,” the words confidentially poured out of her mouth, as she shoved the serviette towards my chest, urging me to take a look at it.

 

There were two sets of digits, one was unmistakably Elsa’s cell, and the other was our home phone.

 

The most antisocial person I knew gave both of her numbers...to a girl she just met.

 

“Just...how?” I pleaded for an answer, in unadulterated awe at what had just happened.

 

“I can’t tell you.”

 

“What the hell? Why not?”

 

“You’re her brother. I’m not gonna tell you what I said to her; that’s disgusting.”

 

I nearly gagged at the simple thought of possible phrases Merida might have provided. 

 

“Yeah...you’re right. I don’t want to know a thing.”

 

Merida smiled triumphantly, crumbling the tableware into her jean pocket.

 

“Now, speaking of pretty blondes,” she continued, adjusting the hem of her blue tee, “what’s the deal with Goldilocks over there?”

 

“I will pay you fifty dollars to never call her that again.”

 

“Sure thing, Betty White.”

 

The last thing I need is another Astrid in my life.

 

“Punz has a boyfriend.” I promptly informed her, not particularly in favor of Merida questing the affection of every blonde I knew.

 

“Would you just calm down? I can keep it in my pants; I’m asking about you. Why can’t you stop slobbering all over her?”

 

I wanted to shove my hand over her mouth. I wanted more than anything for her to shut up. Rapunzel was roughly twelve feet away from us, definitely within hearing distance.

 

“Hey, I don't see Sandy anywhere around here...maybe you should go look for him."

 

“Orphan Annie wasn’t Scottish.” her brows were sinking lower and lower in annoyance, nearly colliding with turquoise.”

 

“Well, she never hit on anyone’s sister in front of them, either, did she?” It was as if I was about to witness the transformation of Bruce Banner into the Hulk.

 

Just as she was about to counter, I spotted Hiccup in the corner of my eye.

 

“Okay, well, I can see that this little blind date has been a phenomenal success. I’ll be sure to tell Astrid all about it.”

 

We stood there, glaring at each other, our competition continuing silently.

 

“I hate to interrupt the two of you, given how well this was all going, but..uh, Merida, your dad’s here.” He remarked, sardonicism practically radiating off of the brunette.

 

Then...a tiny lightbulb flickered inside my head: the one way to piss off any Scott without fail.

 

“Oh, sweet! I’ve never met a leprechaun.”

 

She quickly readied her fists. I had drawn the line. It was as if I was about to witness the transformation of Bruce Banner into the Hulk.

 

 Merida was within seconds of punching me right in the face, but Hiccup, being the savior he is, stepped in, taking hold of her shoulders.

 

“Listen, Merida. Your father is a very...intimidating man. I do not doubt that he will tear my head off if I don’t get you out the front door this second.

 

She lowered her hands, bestowing upon me a sweet blessing of relief.

 

“Haddock, you wuss. He’s just a big teddy bear. You've got nothing to be frightened of.” She assured him, playfully grinning. “You, Jack, on the other hand-”

 

“Alright, Mer, let’s go. Now.”

 

Hiccup walked her to the door, on the other side of the room, and I could’ve sworn she was turning green as she walked off.

 

 

 

Immediately upon returning to the spot where he had previously left me, he glared scornfully in my direction.

 

“Really classy Jack, I applaud you,” he remarked, patting me on the back.

 

“You know,” I rejoined, as he more than gladly took his hands off of me, “she’s not so bad once you look past the fact that she’s kind of a bitch.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It's Not Her Fault She Makes Girls Realize They're Lesbians](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3965413) by [ruff_ethereal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal)




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